For most of her life, Carol Smith has never had much
trouble with sleep . But
all of that changed when she began working a 12-hour graveyard shift -- from 6
p.m. to 6 a.m. -- as a 911 dispatcher.

At times, she says she's had to struggle to stay awake
and alert on the job. "It was very difficult for me," she recalls. "I'd get real
fidgety, and doing any kind of paperwork was hard because it was so tough to
concentrate. At times, I felt so uncomfortable that I just wanted to crawl out
of my skin."

But then Carol found relief. She participated in a sleep
study at Henry Ford Medical Center in Detroit, and was diagnosed with "shift
work sleep disorder" (SWSD), a condition that affects people whose sleep-wake and lifestyle demands are out
of sync with their normal biological (circadian) rhythms. It consists of
symptoms of insomnia or excessive sleepiness that occur as transient phenomena
in relation to work schedules.

She now takes a prescription medication called Provigil
(modafinil), which
promotes wakefulness in people with debilitating excessive sleepiness associated
with SWSD.